The fact that we do point releases is exactly how previous versions
get supported. When a bug is found in e.g. 2.3.27 and the fix is
released in 2.3.28, then if you want the fix you have to install 2.3.28.

How exactly do you expect people to receive fixes, if not by
installing them when they are available?

There is a difference between knowing definitively whether the OP was
running into a bug and by upgrading it would be fixed compared to just
telling him he has to upgrade because some bugs have been fixed (not
necessarily the one he is running into, if he is even running into one)
and that he won't get much or any help unless he does the upgrade. The
knee-jerk reaction on this list is usually to tell people to upgrade.
That works great if it can have a good chance of fixing the problem but
that doesn't usually seem to be the reason people are told to upgrade.

It wasn't specified whether the OP was running into a bug or not. He was
just told to upgrade. I'd prefer to know ahead of time if it was me that
an upgrade would actually fix it instead of going thru the time of doing
it and not fixing it and it having the chance of breaking something else.

It isn't just with this guy's post either. I see "You are way out of
date. You need to upgrade." answers to a lot of questions on here.
Obviously the best case scenario is for everyone to run the latest code
but that isn't always possible

At least some rationale ahead of time for upgrading would be nice in my
opinion because I got the impression it is just used as an excuse to not
help someone. I'm the type to ask 'why' before I'm told to do something
to better evaluate the proposed solution. That may very well be the
wrong impression but it is one that was easy to arrive at.

The OP was already pretty certain that they were not doing anything out of
sequence or otherwise wrong. A number of posts were made asking for more
details, to ascertain whether some simple misconfiguration may have been at
fault. The only thing left is to eliminate any possible bugs. Also, if there's
a previously-unknown bug and it isn't fixed in any of the later patches, an
upgrade is still required.

The Project's policy on patches is (and has always been, since 1998 when the
Project was founded) as noted here: